Fair Meadows in Tulsa, Okla., has reversed itself and will conduct live racing in 2013, track official Ron Shotts said Thursday. The track, which operates a mixed meet each summer at fair grounds facilities in Tulsa, last month made plans to cease operations after the fair board entered into a sponsorship agreement with a local Native American tribe that called for discontinuing live racing.

He’s doing it with the proverbial arm tied behind his back. Mike Maker once again is atop the trainer standings at Turfway Park despite the fact he takes his best horses to Florida every winter.

Maker, who into this week of action led the holiday meet with four victories, has won 11 meet titles at Turfway while generally maintaining a string comprised of horses of lesser abilities at the northern Kentucky track. He is particularly strong in the upper ranks at Turfway, having won 19 stakes since the 2009 spring-meet.

California, here he comes.

Trainer Todd Pletcher shipped west six weeks ago and made off with the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile with Shanghai Bobby, securing the Eclipse Award for champion male 2-year-old. He was just getting warmed up.

Pletcher is flush with so many promising 2-year-old males that he was able to win last month’s Remsen at Aqueduct with Overanalyze, while keeping Violence on the sidelines, awaiting the Grade 1, $750,000 CashCall Futurity on Saturday at Betfair Hollywood Park.

The late Eleanor Casey’s husband and one of her sons will try to become the first one in their family to win the stakes named in her honor on Saturday night at Charles Town.

James W. Casey, who founded the family’s Taylor Mountain Farm with his wife in the early 1960s, will saddle favored Queen’o’daball in Saturday night’s $50,000 Eleanor Casey Memorial Stakes for West Virginia-bred 2-year-old fillies. Son John A. Casey, who manages the farm, will saddle the uncoupled entry of Landon Did It and I Did It That Time in the two-turn, seven-furlong race.

Trainer Lloyd Mason is hoping for a change in fortune Saturday when he enters Shudacudawudya and Cardiffbythesea at Golden Gate Fields in the $50,000 Oakland Stakes at six furlongs.

The two sprinters ran second and third to Gig Harbor in a Nov. 11 allowance prep for the Oakland. They’ll be meeting Gig Harbor again Saturday.

It’s hard to believe they haven’t crossed paths, but former stablemates Saginaw and Hillswick, two of the most prolific winners on the New York circuit over the past two years, tangle for the first time in Saturday’s 54th running of the $75,000 Gravesend Handicap, with defending titlist Frazil standing in their way.

The Gravesend is the eighth of nine races and the third leg of a $250,000-guaranteed late pick four that gets under way with race 6 at 2:50 p.m. Eastern.

OLDSMAR Fla. – Alley Oop Oop, a close-up fifth in the Grade 3 Tropical Turf Handicap in his last outing, drops down in class on Saturday in a field of nine optional claiming turf runners slated to start in the 1 1/16-mile feature.

Trained by Stanley Gold, Alley Oop Oop made his last start in the nine-furlong Tropical Turf on the Calder grass. The 4-year-old Florida homebred was steadied in traffic while racing along in sixth in the nine-horse field, then swung wide into the stretch, but couldn’t gain late, winding up fifth, beaten just three lengths by winning Philly Ace.

The most interesting older horse in the barn of Paul McGee, Churchill Downs track-record-setter Infrattini, is slated to race next month in the Louisiana Handicap. But McGee has depth in the dirt-route ranks and entered two other horses in the $75,000 Tenacious Handicap, the Saturday feature at Fair Grounds. McGee plans to start Worldly and Majestic Harbor. Both horses rate a chance in the 1 1/16-mile Tenacious – as do five of the other seven entrants in a truly wide-open race.

Winning Image’s sharp recent form may give her a substantial advantage over her three main rivals coming off lengthy absences in Saturday’s $100,000 Willa On The Move Stakes for filly and mare sprinters at Laurel Park.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday offers redemption for jockey Garrett Gomez aboard the promising 3-year-old Grandeur.

In the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on Nov. 25, Gomez rode Grandeur for the first time and they finished a fast-closing second in the race over 1 1/4 miles, losing by 1 1/4 lengths to Unbridled Command. Gomez will try to improve on his ride in the derby, where he had Grandeur six wide on the final turn before finishing with a big rally.

“I ended up in the middle of nowhere,” Gomez said of his wide trip.